Chart Climber: Economist Sachs Reignites Poverty Dialogue

Development economist Jeffrey Sachs’s new book “Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet” has kick-started another round of discussions about global poverty. His views usually elicit a strong response from bloggers and economists and this time is no different.” The book is currently #126 on Amazon after its release last week.

Mr. Sachs is best known for his development work with struggling economies like Latin America and the former Yugoslavia. His 2005 book “The End of Poverty” presented an argument to end “extreme poverty” for what it claims is more than one billion people living on less than $1 a day. His newest book focuses on four challenges for the next decade, including population growth and environmental catastrophe.

Mr. Sachs has encountered ideological opponents before. New York University professor William Easterly issued a strong rebuttal to “End of Poverty” and the following year wrote his response in “The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good.”

Some blogging economists already have issued their appraisals of Mr. Sachs’ s new book. Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University and author of “Discover Your Inner Economist,” wrote on the Marginal Revolution:

“Sachs is very smart and, though I do not agree with him, there is often more to his views than his critics admit. But my browsing of this book never gave me the feeling that I had access to the mind of Jeffrey Sachs. It doesn’t even read like a popularization. Imagine a smart and diligent but not insightful or self-reflective person doing a ‘color by numbers’ version of what a Jeffrey Sachs book should read like.”